Developing a Heart for Housework – With 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae

{A Giveaway and Review}

Be honest. How many of you like housework. I mean,.. really LIKE it. I have things I don’t mind so much, but I admit.. housework can get me down so easily. Housework never ends, it undoes as fast as you do it, it’s repetitive, I often work hard with very little to show for it. (Or maybe I work hard and it DOES show but it’s undone so easily and quickly that it’s disheartening.)  In short: I am not a fan, but I do love a clean house. Therein lies the problem.

My husband is quite fond of a clean home as well, as I’ve mentioned, and my kids deserve a clean home to grow up in. But it’s not all about “clean” is it? What about functional, warm, loving, creative, happy? And yet cleanliness is a building block for all of those things. With our move into this new home, I’ve been determined to put some better habits in place, and strive for a cleaner, happier, home life here. We have really been doing quite well. But housework can still be somewhat depressing sometimes. Sometimes it just feels so pointless.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for man.
Colossians 3:23

I’ve used the above verse for motivation with housework for quite some time. WhatEVER I’m doing, do it for God. Sweeping, mopping, sacking up the trash..when I don’t feel like doing it, do it for HIM. I already had that one building block in place, but I felt like I could use some inspiration in this area. So I requested a copy of Sarah Mae’s 31 Days to Clean: Having A Martha House the Mary Way – I had heard good things about it! I downloaded it and hoped I’d find inspiration somewhere in it’s pages.

Right off the bat, Sarah started getting at the heart of my issue – my heart. Beginning on Day 1 with “Why Clean?,” she challenged me to come up with MY “why,” why do *I* clean? It wasn’t too hard to come up with my answer, but then on Days 2 and 3, I needed to come up with ways that I can and do give life to my home. What? I actually sat on that for a couple of days. I soon discovered that I had all these ideas in my head but I hadn’t spent too much time digging in my heart.

In an easy to read little ebook, Sarah Mae presents 31 short devotions followed by a Martha challenge and a Mary challenge to help you get started. Much more than a list of To-Do’s, 31 Days to Clean seeks to help you develop a *heart* for your home and all the housework that goes with it. To be transparent, I have to admit that I’m not all the way through it yet, and that since we just moved into a new home many of the Martha challenges didn’t apply to me. But even so, I’ve already noticed a change in my “big picture” approach toward my daily chores. I picture the mundane tasks as working toward my bigger goal. I visualize and think through how I want our home to be and I work toward that. I think about how God wants me to use my home and I strive to meet that end. Finally: my heart is in it.

I’m not saying that 31 Days to Clean is a magic pill of some sort. God put this prompting on my heart, He planted that seed, He used this ebook to water it for sure! You gotta desire that kind of change for your heart and your home, too. Seeking His will, this ebook might be able to water your little seeds of hope for your housework, too.

Life is REAL here in our house. We live, we make messes. But we’re learning to have fun and make that mess and then clean it up. We make mistakes and sometimes we fall behind, but we’re learning to jump on that and clean it up before it gets worse. We’re keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, bigger than that pile of laundry or dirty dishes. We have to work at it, every day, but I’m pleased with the changes we’ve made and I pray they stick!

TWO sweet ladies will be blessed with their own copy of 31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way. Simply use the Rafflecopter App below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway will go live shortly before the Mommy Time party begins. 8pm in all time zones, beginning at 8pm Eastern at Blessed Beyond a Doubt and ending at 8pm Pacific on my Facebook page.

You can find 31 Days to Clean at their site and also on Amazon.

Throughout the post, I shared some pictures from recent cleaning and organizing days. You can tell that we’re still settling in, we have more organizing and more remodeling and redecorating to do. This presents a challenge in and of itself! Once we have all our remodeling and redecorating done, once we have all the organizational needs in place, staying on top of our chores should be even easier! I am truly thankful for this home God has provided, and I look forward to using it to Glorify and serve Him more! Taking care of our home is not only one way that I can show love to my husband, but my children, and others as well because we can open our home to friends and family members and more easily practice the art of hospitality.

** A special thanks to Sarah Mae for providing a copy of 31 Days to Clean for me to review!